


Kindling

by Tanaqui



Category: Warrior Scarlet - Rosemary Sutcliff
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 03:45:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14729330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tanaqui/pseuds/Tanaqui
Summary: "I have no place among the maidens of the Tribe. I am not one with them, I am not one with the Half People either."Blai, caught between worlds, thinks her place is with Drem—but has little hope he will ever see it.





	Kindling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [opalmatrix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/opalmatrix/gifts).



> Thanks to my usual beta.

The sun was beating down harshly as the girls came up to the shearing ground with the jars of buttermilk.

"Blai, go you up to the pens," Essylt ordered loftily, not waiting to see if Blai obeyed before she and the others turned towards the shearers.

Blai was not surprised. The pens were further away, and the jar was heavy on her hip, and there were only the Half People and the Little Dark People at the shearing, no Men of the Tribe on whom the girls could bestow shy glances and smiles and giggles while the buttermilk was drunk.

Settling the jar more comfortably on her hip, Blai set off and saw—her heart gave a jump at the sight—that there was one head like polished copper among the dark-haired men working around the pens. She had not been sure if Drem would come down from the High Chalk, even though all hands would be needed to drive the flocks.

Blai stopped when she reached the corner of the pen to watch Drem running a sheep down to the shearers. His one hand was twisted into the thick fleece, pressing the sheep against his leg to hold its course straight. When he had let the sheep go, into the hands of a waiting shearer, he straightened and impatiently pushed away the hair plastered to his forehead with the back of his hand. Then he swung round and made his way steadily back towards the pens with a long loping stride, a slight frown between his brows and his mouth set in a hard line, not looking to right or left.

Seeing his face, Blai suddenly understood how much she had missed him, in the month and more since he had gone to the Half People—as she had not missed him when he had gone to the Boys' House. Then, he was to have been gone only for three turns of the seasons, and would return to take his place among the Men's Side, and she would still be Blai, who was not quite of the Tribe, nor of the Half People or the Dark People. Who did not belong quite anywhere and could not belong to anyone. 

And then Drem, also, did not belong quite anywhere.

Carefully setting down the jar of buttermilk, she reached up and broke off a knot of white elder flowers and twined it in her hair, feeling foolish but knowing the other girls thought it made them pretty to do likewise. Then she took up the jar and began to move among the men, letting first one and then another drink. Yet when it came time to bring the buttermilk to Drem, returning from running down another sheep, she hesitated. And by the time she went on and paused by him, he had already taken another sheep from the pen.

But he turned his head and saw her and, letting go of the sheep, reached out to catch her wrist, his face lighting up with pleasure. Her heart leaped again and she smiled back at him—but it was not pleasure to see her. No, it was only that she could bring him news of his kin, and tell him how his mother did.

She gave him the news—that his mother was well—and hoisted the heavy jar and held it steady for him, as he could not hold it with his one hand, while he drank. And after he had drunk, she went on telling him the news. "The Grandfather, he took a chill in that last storm. You know, the one before you—. Anyway, he was bad with a cough, but your mother showed me. A tincture. How to make it. And all is well with him, now."

Drem was looking at her eagerly, leaning towards her a little, and she longed to reach out and take his hand as they spoke. She tightened her hands on the buttermilk jar and went on talking, scarcely aware of what she was saying. "And Drustic—there was good hunting. After the last new moon. A fine young roe, and your mother was glad, for we were almost out of meat. And oh, Minna—Whitethroat's sister, you remember? That Talore kept?—had her litter. Six fine puppies, and I think they are all already spoken for. And the red mare—you know? That was born this time last year—is ready for breaking, now, and Drustic will have Vortrix help him." She saw Drem's face darken and hurried on, "And you should come down—you should come down and see the fruit trees. So much blossom there is, now that the sun has come. Your mother says we will scarcely know what to do with all the fruit if it ripens. And she is making a new herb bed above the corn, for the old one grows so well there is scarcely room for everything any more. And, and... and I think that is all, this past month since—."

She stopped then, and stood looking into the end of the buttermilk in the jar, knowing she should move on, that other men would be thirsty, but trying to think of more news she could tell Drem to keep her there. But there was nothing else to tell. There would be more news in another month, but there would be no Drem to tell it to, unless—. 

She said, all of a rush, without quite meaning to, "I could come and bring you news of your home again— sometimes—if you would like."

He'd wanted to know why, then. Why she would do that for him. As if any other boy wouldn't have understand exactly what she'd meant when she'd said that maybe it would be less lonely on the High Chalk if she came. Did he really care so little for her that he couldn't even think of her that way? She looked up at him, seeing his frown as he looked down at her, and a hot wave of shame rose up in her. She had offered herself, without even a promise of handfasting—like one of the women of the Little Dark People that the men shared between them—and he hadn't even _noticed_. 

He was still looking at her with a puzzled expression, still waiting for an answer, and she fumbled for the right words to make him understand. That she, who did not belong quite anywhere, belonged with him, whether he knew it or no, and he with her. 

"You came after me once —years ago—when that man came, and all the other children laughed. You came after me because I was of your hearth, you said; and so now—surely if I am of your hearth, then you must be of mine."

He went on looking at her, his gaze taking in the flower in her hair, and her face, and her hands holding the jar of buttermilk and coming back to her face, and she saw something shift in him: no longer puzzled, but suddenly unsure, even a little shy. He said her name, haltingly—.

And then the loud bleat of the stupid sheep he had let go a while since broke them from the spell that lay over them. He turned and, with a half-curse under his breath, went after the sheep, and all was confusion and struggle for a moment, and then he was running the sheep down to the shearers, and the moment was past.

One of the other Half People was calling for the buttermilk, and Blai turned and went, and when she was done, Drem was busy with the sheep again, and there was another man wanting his drink of buttermilk.

It was some time later before she could return to Drem's side, all the while hoping that she had not mistaken what she had seen in his eyes. Hoping that he would say, "Yes, come up to the High Chalk, that we may be less lonely, you and I." But when he flung round and saw her, his eyes flashed angrily and she shrank back.

_No need that you follow me! No need that you follow me! I shall do well enough—better maybe—without. Without. Without._

The words repeated themselves over and over in her mind as he glared at her for a moment before swinging away. She had thought nothing could be as cruel as the blow dealt out her by that man—who had fathered her but was no father. But Drem, who had softened that first blow with his kindness, who had shown her kindness at other times, had dealt her a worse blow now.

She stayed where she was, not looking after him, not looking anywhere at all but straight ahead with unseeing eyes, trying to master her breath and the sharp prickling behind her eyes. Her heart was still beating quickly and her breath was still ragged when the blackness before her eyes finally cleared and she became aware that the old shepherd, Doli, was beckoning to her.

She brought him the jar of buttermilk, forcing her feet to move, and he took it and drank slowly, his dark eyes watching her over the rim of the jar.

She had herself under control again by the time he lowered the jar. She held out her hands to take it back, but he did not give it to her at first. "It is a foolish man who does not value what you offer him," he said quietly, his eyes shrewd. Then he handed the jar back to her, and took up the spear that he had laid aside, and turned back towards the entrance to the sheep pen.

Blai watched him go. "It is I that am the fool," she answered at last, too low for any ears but her own to hear.

oOo

Almost a year had passed and it was Beltane again, and she had gone on being a fool, for she could not give up hope—in the way she had given up hope as a child that her true father would return and take her away— that Drem would one day want what she offered. At least this time it was easier to pretend to everyone that nothing had happened, for no one except Doli had heard Drem's words, and he had gone back to the High Chalk with Drem.

And now it was Beltane again, and Blai had watched as Drem had returned with the other New Spears, the new warrior patterns blue against his pale skin in the glow of the sinking sun, and had received his weapons from the Grandfather and Talore the Hunter. He was of the Tribe again, no longer between worlds, as she was still between worlds. And now he would never want what she had offered.

She came away, then, before the food pits were opened. She had no stomach for food. She could not have forced even a bite down past the stone that lay beneath her breast.

Reaching the house-place, she sank down in the doorway and leaned sideways against the doorpost. It was well, she thought, that the Men's Side and the Women's Side might have little to do with each other, now that Drem was returned home and healed. It had been easy enough to tend him when he had been wounded near to death, grateful for all she did for him. Harder, indeed, to let his mother have her share of it, though she had seemed willing, after the first sharp battle for his life was won, to leave his care to Blai. It was so much harder still, once Drem was healed, once it was agreed he was to become one of the Tribe again, to sit across the fire from him, so close and yet so distant she might as well have been sitting in the Royal Dun.

She grew cold and stiff as the night darkened around her and as the moon rose, but she did not move. Where was there for her to go? What sense to try and warm her bones and ease her pains when there was a deeper chill and a sharper hurt inside her? 

Absently, she drew off the woolen net that bound her hair and let it fall around her shoulders, but she could not summon the strength to get up and rake ash from the fire to smear on her forehead, or find the voice to raise the death chant. It was not that Drem was lost to her as if he were dead, she saw now, but that she was dead to him. She had never been more than a sad, pale ghost, trailing behind him unregarded, even as the weak, silvered moon sometimes chased the indifferent golden sun.

She dropped her hands to her lap, palms turned upward. Empty. They would always be empty....

Whitethroat, thrusting his muzzle against her neck, startled her from her thoughts. She looked up and saw Drem coming after, and remembered, too late, that it would be for Drem, as the youngest grown man of the household, to bring home the New Fire. She got wearily to her feet, wondering if the others—the Grandfather and his mother—were close behind. She was afraid—a little afraid—to be alone with him just now.

They were not. The Grandfather would not come away—yes, that was like the Grandfather. And no doubt when he did come, he would be overtired and complaining and have them all running here and there at his bidding while he grumbled. So Drem had come alone with the New Fire to rekindle the dead hearth.

Drem held out the firepot towards her to show her the New Fire and she bent to look at the glowing embers. If only it were as easy to kindle feelings as it was to kindle the New Fire! Or as easy to douse them as it was to smother the old year's fire once it had outlived its time.

Drem blew on the red seeds of the fire, brightening them for a moment, so that they ate up the tinder in the firepot a little faster. Blai was seized with a sudden fear that the fire would die before they could rekindle the hearth. It was not her hearth, not really, but it was the only hearth she had ever known, and Drem's mother had always been kind to Blai, after her fashion.

"Come, let us wake the fire on the hearth," she said urgently.

They groped inside, and with great care lit a twig from the embers, and kindled the twists of birch bark left ready for the New Fire, and slowly and patiently fed the flames that sprang up with small twigs and then larger ones.

The stone that lay beneath Blai's breast was still heavy, but it did not seem to hurt quite so much, as she watched the New Fire springing up. It was beautiful, the New Fire, like the first shimmering of the green buds on the thorn trees, or the first shy spark of a primrose peeking out on the grassy banks along the woodshore, or the far-off call of the first cuckoo. "It is like a flower," she said softly. "A flower of the Sun."

She looked up and saw Drem was smiling at her with the same delight in his face that she felt, and she smiled back.

Then, abruptly, he said, "Blai, why were you here?"

She knew well enough what he meant. Why was she not there, with the rest of the Women's side, celebrating _his_ triumph on this most joyous of days for _him_?

"I—saw you come back with the New Spears." She kept her voice level as she turned her attention back to carefully tending the fire. "And then I came away. I had things to do."

It was a poor answer, and clearly he thought so, but she would not—could not—give him a better. She would not give him another chance to tell her, as he had told her last year at the sheep-shearing, that he would do well enough—better maybe—without her.

But by and by—Why could he never leave things alone? Why must he pick at them and pick at them until the wound was raw again?—he asked, "Blai, why did you come away?"

She looked back up at him. That was easy enough to answer. "What place have I yonder with the Women's side? I have no place among the maidens of the Tribe. I am not one with them, I am not one with the Half People either. It is better that I come away...."

As it had been a year ago by the sheep-pens, his puzzled expression faded, to be replaced by understanding—and then by more than understanding. 

Still, she could not quite trust that he did, after all, want what she had offered him a year since. Easier—safer—to think it was just a little kindness: one of the Golden Lords showing a brief moment of pity and affection for a motherless lamb.

And for a heartbeat, she thought that she had been right: about the pity, and about the wisdom of guarding herself from further hurt. See how quickly he would turn away from her to a woman of his own People. Suddenly out of patience, weary of walking an endless path that seemed to be strewn with furze twigs, her anger had flashed out. "Then let you take one of them to leap through the fire with you, my young Golden Lord!"

And then—.

"I do not wish for any of them, Blai."

A moment longer for her to trust—really trust. Then, smiling, she carefully banked the fire, and rose, and put her hand in his.


End file.
